Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Post # 5

African Americans, both in the north and the south faced very difficult situations. In the James Baldwin's essay "Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem," and the beginning of l Malcolm X's autobiography, they agree that living conditions were a one of the biggest problems for black people in the north. Because of the migration from the south, the need for adequate housing grew and the North was not necessarily willing or able to provide it.

Together with bad living conditions, lack of good jobs, poor education and police brutality, and black communities had a long way to go. In the late 60s and early 70s The Black communities all over the north in cities like Philadelphia and New York (Harlem) tried to better their living condition and take more of an active role to control their destiny. They used strategies such as community organizing to educate people about their rights and encourage them to invest their money by spending in black owned business and even run for office.

It is hard to say if the techniques used in the south would be effective in the north. Though the oppression was bad in both places the issues where not the same, we some issues were. The technique of civil disobedience might not have work the way it did in the south because discrimination laws, the situation was different in the North the problem was not the law but the implementation or lack there of and the poor living condition, overpricing and police brutality in the black communities.

In my opinion one of the techniques that was used by the civil rights movements in the South that was effective also for the north and can even be utilized today and be effective was utilizing the media to unveil the injustices endured by the black community. This is a technique makes the government accountable to the people when utilized properly the media could be educational and very useful.

1 comment:

Hi Castro - Great post and great comparisons. We'll see more about what happenned in the north as we move our discussion into more recent years next week.

We've missed you in class this week! Remember that we're meeting in the room tommorow to go on our trip. I look forward to reading the start of your brainstorm and the sources you've found for your essay.